


The Waiting Room

by rispacooper



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Comment Fic, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint can’t see, will not open his eyes, but he knows where he is. He is on his back on a couch in some random room in Tony Stark’s house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waiting Room

Clint can’t see, will not open his eyes, but he knows where he is. He’s on his back on the couch. Not just any couch, he can’t help but think, can’t help but be distantly amused by the fact that he is on his back on a couch in some random room in Tony Stark’s house. Stark's house seems like the kind of place that’s big enough the rooms should have names, like the First Dining Room, the West Pool House, the Conservatory (the Sex Dungeon, he should say, but he thinks Stark finds labs a bigger turn on), but instead it’s just nameless room after nameless room, cleaned and empty and waiting for someone to find them.

Clint named the room he’s in. He’d named it weeks ago, not that he’d divulged the name to anyone else. It’s just a room after all, a room with a couch and some chairs and rug and a TV set, a room to be alone in, drawn curtains and faint light and flickering images from the magic box.

He doesn’t really care much for TV when there are other things to watch, but the open air has felt strange for months, too open, too much, so he’s come in here and kept the couch at his back. (Nat’s named the room too. He can’t guess what, but he knows from her few visits that she has an opinion about his hidey hole. She’ll share it when she wants to. They both know enough not to press until things need pressing. Right now… right now things need pressing. Are being pressed.)

TV voices sound like people, and that's what lonely people use it for, company. (He’d watch them watch TV, holed up in some safehouse somewhere, desperate for contact and getting laugh tracks and corny sitcom jokes.) Clint can’t take reality TV but nature things are sort of useful background noise. Right now it’s a mumble that only part of his mind absorbs. Wolves, he thinks, something about wolves. (People would expect birds. People can fuck off.) 

He thinks about prehistoric wolves fighting to survive and then slides his hands up to the cushion under his head. He thinks about their shattered bones and short lives, then grunts when strong hands curl around his wrists and push them down. He shifts his legs apart, dropping a foot to the floor, and there is howling in the distance. (Cracked teeth, maybe, the dire wolves are starving. Clint is straining, making wounded noises that he only wishes embarrassed him.)

“You fucker,” he whines, furious that he’s furious, that he said anything at all and ruined the silence and heavy breathing and calm documentary narration. He could grip, he could _hurt_ , but instead he’s pinned, Coulson has him pinned, and Clint's not doing anything about it but panting and leaving his eyes closed.

His eyes are sharp (the sharpest). Even in the meager light from the TV he would see too much, lines at the corner of Phil’s eyes (familiar, new), paler skin, shadowed eyes. Shut, his world is black and wavering blue. Shut, he’s effectively blind. He still knows he’s being studied, considered, anything but kissed or reassured. There won’t be that. There won’t be reassurance at all. This could happen again.

It _will_ happen again. That’s their life now. Betrayal and aliens. Death. Rebirth. Sudden appearances of dead lovers in your secret fortress of solitude. (Large wolves were unable to survive the competition for food in the changing times. Packs of smaller wolves adapted and lived.)

Coulson is pressing into him, out of breath, unsteady, stupid gentle. There’s no need for that, but Clint takes it. They’re all alone except for the wolves and maybe JARVIS, so he can stay down and tilt his head back until Phil’s mouth is close, hot over his throat, and then whimper.

He’s on his back on a couch in a dark room, and Phil is pressed into him, pulse heavy and anxious, his gaze soft. Phil is alive.

“You fucker,” Clint says again, at himself this time, and opens his eyes.


End file.
